


Keep smiling through (just like you always do)

by Barnesnrogers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Returns, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 07:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6694564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barnesnrogers/pseuds/Barnesnrogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky returns to Steve but his eyes don't look at him the same anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep smiling through (just like you always do)

The thing that makes it harder, Steve thinks, is that even though he knows this isn't the Bucky from Brooklyn, it's hard to see him so quiet. It's silence. It's been like this since Bucky came back two weeks ago. Steve was sitting in the living room staring at the dark screen of his T.V absentmindedly. There was rustling, so quiet Steve wouldn't have been able to hear it had he not been completely silent, and then an opening of a window. Steve's shield was on his arm right away. But it was Bucky. And he just walked in, looked at Steve in passing and sat down to stare out the window, and that was that. Ever since then they spent their days in silence. Steve gave up trying to talk to him, Bucky would on his own time, hopefully. 

****  


It happens almost three weeks into Bucky's stay. Steve was at the counter making breakfast for the both of them. He learned that egg whites on toast seem to be Bucky's favourite. Bucky was staring out the window, alert as always. Then-  
“Did she love you?” Steve stopped what he was doing, startled by the voice that used to to whisper into his ear a lifetime ago.  
“Buck, what do you-” Steve started,  
“Did she love you?” He repeated, still looking out the window, still alert.  
“Who?” Steve questioned becoming more confused. This is the first thing Bucky said since he got here and Steve doesn't understand.  
“Agent Carter, from the war. Did she love you?”  
“I-I don't think so, maybe?”  
“Did you love her?” Bucky finally turned, looking at Steve. His eyes are still as blue as they always were but they didn't seem to hold the same familiarity.

“I...yeah I think I did. She cared about me before the serum, you and her were the only ones. It was hard not to love her.” Steve admitted. He did love Peggy, loved her like he loved Bucky. She looked at Steve the way Bucky had before the war. She saw the fight in him, saw the compassion. Bucky knew he couldn't stop Steve from getting into back alley fights with guys twice his size. Bucky knew Steve did what he did for his own reasons, whether that was to save some dame for a guy looking at her the wrong way. Or for Steve to feel like he was stronger, going into a fight to prove to himself that his body was better. Bucky knew he couldn't stop him so he settled for cleaning and bandaging Steve, looking at him with the same eyes Peggy looked at Steve with. 

“Did you love me?” Steve's eyes snapped up meeting Bucky’s stone grey ones, those eyes didn't look at Steve the same anymore. Bucky knew, remembered the hushed nights, two bodies in a bed instead of one, the confessions whispered in the dark when Steve got pneumonia and they both thought it was their last night together. Remembered the soft smiles and the hesitant hands when they were alone. Steve stared back. 

“I still do Buck.” He forced himself not to look away, saw the brief flicker of emotion pass through Bucky's face. Bucky stood up, taking two long strides into Steve’s space. 

“You can't, I'm not him anymore,” Bucky spat angrily “I'm not the man you went to war with, not the man in those pictures.” Bucky was seething, teetering on the edge of anger or sadness.  
“Buck-”  
“You can't love me! I'm not him anymore, I'm not-” he choked back a sob, taking two steps back. “I'm not the man you loved, I'm barely a ghost of him.” Steve stared at Bucky for awhile. Took in his face, the shape of his jaw, his shoulder and his hips. Took in the places he used to hold, the body he used to draw a million times over, never getting tired of the way he looked on paper. Then he took in the arm. The one used to kill hundreds with, the one he used to hurt Steve with. 

“No you're not,” Bucky watched him. “You're not the man same I grew up with, went to war with, danced with. But your sides are still the same, your hips still curve the way they always have and your eyes are still the same. The same ones from Brooklyn, from the war and now. And I've always loved you. I loved you when we were kids, when you took Mary Ann to the dance and left me at home cause I was too sick.” Steve looked towards Bucky and all at once saw the man who went through so much but is still here standing in Steve's living room. Saw the man he's still and is forever devoted to. 

“I loved you in Brooklyn, in Europe. I loved you when I took a nosedive into the Arctic.” Steve's eyes are getting wet and Bucky is inching forward.  
“I loved you in 2012 when I was alone in a world that I didn't know. I loved you on the helicarrier and I loved you as I fell.” Bucky is standing in front of Steve now, staring up at him with the same eyes. Steve misses when he had to look up to Bucky to meet his eyes. It took awhile for him and Bucky to relearn Steve’s body.  
“I love you now. God Bucky, I love you. I will forever. You're not the Bucky from Brooklyn I loved, or Sergeant Barnes from the war that I loved and you're not the Winter Soldier I loved. You are who you are now and you're kidding yourself if you don't think I don't love you now too.” 

Bucky reached out like he was going to touch him and Steve has missed him too damn much. Steve reached out, taking Bucky's hand and pulling him towards him. Just like that their touch brought them back together. Almost eighty years of being apart seemed to disappear in that moment. 

“I-I knew you. I knew their was something missing in my head when they took away everything. I still knew their was a feeling gone even after I couldn't even remember how to feel. And I love you, Steve,” Bucky let out a sob “and I missed you so much.”

After eighty years, through sickness and health, war and death, two soldiers still managed to find each other, no matter what lifetime. Steve looked at Bucky who was against his chest. As their eyes met Steve thought that Bucky's blue eyes started to look at Steve the way they used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As this is my first fic please excuse and errors. Please leave kudos as well so I know this isn't too terrible.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave comments or kudos.   
> Im barnesnrogers-s.tumblr.com


End file.
